STEED - Usable end-to-end encryption

[Robert J. Hansen]

On 10/18/2011 11:58 AM, Werner Koch wrote:
> We did this for about 15 years - without any success.  If you look
> at some of the studies you will see that you can't teach that stuff
> to non-techies - sometimes not even to engineers.

As a data point from 2005:

I was teaching computer literacy at the University of Iowa.  The first
day of class I asked the 35 students which of them brought a computer of
any kind to class.  Three people raised their hands: they all said they
brought laptops.  When I asked how many brought cell phones, all 35
raised their hands.  The only people who thought cell phones were
computers were the three who brought laptops.

I then asked if a game console (XBox, Playstation, take your pick) was a
computer.  The class was almost evenly split: half said yes, on account
of how you could surf the web with it.  Half said no, because you can't
write a Word document with it.

Admittedly, this is not a representative sample of college students.
That said, I think it's an informative anecdote.